Over 320,000 booster vaccines in Wales amid fears rollout is going to slow

Just over 320,000 booster vaccines have been administered across Wales.

Booster vaccines are being offered to all health workers, care home staff, those over the age of 50 and individuals with underlying health conditions who received their second dose of the vaccine more than six months ago.

Those invited for the third jab will be offered a dose of Pfizer or Moderna, regardless of which vaccine they initially received.

Rollout has been underway for several weeks but there has been concerns that the pace isn’t matching the initial speed of the initial vaccines.

Despite early criticism over the vaccine programme, Wales quickly became a world leader in issuing first and second doses.

Data on the number of third jabs administered across Wales was not made available until last Friday, with information released by Public Health Wales showing that 322,591 people have received their booster.

Around 50,000 of those have been carried out in North Wales.

A breakdown of how many people in each of the initial priority groups has received their vaccines includes:-

• Care home residents: 8,171 (58.1 per cent)
• Care home staff: 19,146 (49.1 per cent)
• Those aged 80 and over: 78,489 (47.2 per cent)
• Health care worker: 87,859 (61 per cent)
• Social care worker: 25,324 (no information on size of cohort provided)
• Those aged 75-79: 40,122 (30.6 per cent)
• Those aged 70-74: 45,455 (25 per cent)
• Clinically vulnerable aged 16-69 years: 9,691 (12.1 per cent)
• Those aged 65-69: 17,924 (10 per cent)
• Clinical groups aged 12-64 years: 4,961 (1.4 per cent)
• Those aged 60-64: 16,994 (8.3 per cent)
• Those aged 55-59: 22,797 (9.8 per cent)
• Those aged 50-54: 21,452 (9.4 per cent)
• Those aged 40-49 32,236 (8.2 per cent)
• Those aged 30-39: 25,079 (5.9 per cent)
• Those aged 18-29: 18,232 (3.7 per cent)
• Those aged 16-17 281 (0.4 per cent)

Booster vaccines are being offered following emerging evidence that original vaccine effectiveness against the virus starts to wane after five to six months.

Speaking last week about the decrease in immunity, Economy Vaughan Gething, said: “We have this challenge in that the vaccines we have are new vaccines and so whilst they’re safe – and we knew they’d be highly effective when given – as with any vaccine there’s a potential waning in the immunity that it provides.

“The fact that it appears to have provided at least five to six months of good protection is really important, we wouldn’t have been able to recover lots of the freedoms that we have without that.

“We obviously look at the evidence that our scientists are providing on whether waning immunity is a real factor and if so how much.

“The fact that we’re providing a booster programme should highlight that we’re taking account of the fact that it could be a factor in the harm we could see in Wales, if we weren’t providing that booster programme.

“What we can be certain about is getting your full protection is the best way to protect yourselves and people around you, and actually to avoid the need to take any further restriction to protect the health of the nation, but also our economic future, as well.

“So when the time comes, if you’re invited to have a follow up or you’re are in the younger age group who are having your first doses, please do get your vaccination safe, and it’s effective, and it will help to protect all of us.”